I think their more general point was that it does a bad job of being socially concious political rap whch is a point I agree with. I love RTJ2 but I feel like sometimes they get treated as if what they're saying is more insightful than it really is

I mean, for me just the way they're politically charged is the problem, regardless of intention/perception. There's a flatness of tone to both albums that it doesn't allow for the more interesting, varied picture you get from one of killer mike's solo mixtapes or whatever.

I guess basically I'm fine with them being successful and making money but p4k aoty seems like a bit much idk who cares

I can't agree with sentiment, maybe it's because I've never been able to fully enjoy or find myself really pulled into a D'angelo album. I listened to Black Messiah when it dropped and then proceeded to delete it shortly after. There's been an attempt or two to revisit it, however it always ends up being a recycle bin classic. Similar results have been had when it's come to his other projects.

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also i started reading this review and it literally takes the first two paragraphs to dissect the phrase "I'm finna bang this bitch the fuck out" and it goes on to be hypersensitive towards every instance of dick or cunt on the album

this is music criticism now? because this is the puritan nonsense I'd find on some hypersensitive feminist blog

like I pitched to be a writer there a year or so back, and said my favourite genres were electronic, folk, jazz, pop, etc. (that was my first mistake, they probably wanted me to say I DON'T BELIEVE IN GENRES, FCK YOUR SYSTEM)

I feel that if I would have gotten that gig, the first record they'd give me to review would be like a metal or harsh noise record.

It's an interesting move and does create dissonance amongst the large amount of praise that records like RTJ2 and Currents gets. In a way I see it as less of a contrarian review and more just trying to have an other side to the unanimous praise. I like the variety that they can give to the different opinions.

you can't criticize people having a double standard for content in rap then turn around and say "but it's rap!" whenever anyone has a specific criticism. I hate simpleminded thinkpiecey art crit as much as the next person but this is not that, it makes points and it backs up points. if you disagree with them then you disagree with them, but throwing around antifeminist buzzwords doesn't make you any better than them.

anything a human does that you call "art" is art. like everything, it's a social construct, it's all made up.

there's nothing I'm saying that's antifeminist, what I am saying is that this is a crock of horseshit:

"But before delving any further, let’s stop to consider that introductory phrase just a little bit more. “I’m finna bang this bitch the fuck out” is the studio-ad-lib-as-locker-room pep talk, a homosocial ritual wherein power is consolidated through denigration of the feminine. It’s an honest presentation of the ways men revel in their physical and social privileges when there aren’t any women around, and as such, it sets the tone not for righteous, radical anger, but for the reinforcement of the status quo. This language of hypermasculine aggression is hardly new, yet over the 39-minute span of the record, El-P and Killer Mike offer up countless gleeful additions to its vernacular"

"hypersensitive" "puritan" all you're saying is that it's bullshit because it takes time to consider what words mean, I think on a fundamental level you're objecting to the act of analyzing thematic content and not the specific conclusions being drawn, you're mischaracterizing and misreading and I don't think you're really in a position to call someone else oversensitive.

from my vantage point it seems like this writer is asserting that any usage of vernacular like "bitch" "dicks" or "pussies" is always suspect of concern no matter what the context. it sounds a little more like glorified word policing to me than genuine analysis (he calls out "walk naked backwards through a field of dicks" for god's sake)

all due respect, I really do think you're letting your preconceptions of what the writer must be like take over your understanding of the actual content of the review, but I'm not gonna go further down this road because it's not important

it's actually the opposite: I'm forming what I think of the writer by the content of the review

edit: scratch that, by his word it seems the writer is familiar with Mike and El's previous work so I'm wrong in that regard. and actually I don't know anything about the writer so I'm mostly combating the content of the review here